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Response: Food Babe’s unconventional habits

I know that the friend who sent me the guide to Food Babe’s Unconventional Habits is waiting for me to address this. The fact that someone who wrote this list might be respected and trusted in the health and wellness industry is appalling. While I have not taken the time to read her blog, after reading this single document, I know there is no need. She may have some useful advice to offer in between the bullsh&%t, but why should I bother to waste my time?

The unconventional habits

The guide promotes six unconventional habits – for what I am not exactly sure but it seems focused on weight loss. The six habits are:

Drink warm lemon water and cayenne pepper.

Eliminate refined sugar from your diet.

Fast every single day.

Drink a green drink every single day.

Change your grocery store.

Stop drinking with your meals.

I will address each of these individually and break down the ridiculousness – without becoming scientific.

Warm lemon water & cayenne pepper

Some individuals claim that this will boost your metabolism and increase your ability to burn fat. Food Babe promotes it as a detoxifyer and digestive cleanse. A good way to keep your digestive system clean? – chia seeds or something sticky that waste can attach to and then be removed from the body.

Eliminate refined sugar

Duh! Tell me something I did not know. How is this unconventional?

Fast every day

For at least 12 hours Food Babe proclaims. “It takes at least 8 hours for your body to completely digest it’s meals from the day. If you add in another 4 hours to that time without introducing more food to digest, the body actually goes into detoxification mode and has more time to remove dead and dying cells from the body.” Okay, so please refer to Nutrition 101 or any basic nutrition course and you will find for yourself that this is bogus advice. While there is some truth to the 8 hours to digest a meal, after 4 awake hours (approximately, each human body is different) the body will enter starvation mode. While in this mode, your body may shed dead or dying cells as a strategy for survival, but your metabolism will slow down and fat development will increase.

Sure. We all need more green stuff in our diets. “As long as you chew your green drinks your body will be able to digest and receive the benefits. Don’t just slam down a smoothie or juice – you need that chewing action for digestive enzymes to do their magic.” Oh, I see….what makes this habit unconventional is that you have to CHEW your DRINK. Do most individuals need more greens in their diets? Yes. Is a daily, chewable green drink going to improve health???

Change your grocery store

What she is essentially saying is shop at a small, local and natural food store rather than a large, chain store because it is easier to shop and you will be less inclined to buy the crap. There are fewer distractions by highly processed and marketed foods. I can agree with this one – this is a great habit and strategy.

Do not drink with your meals.

Last, but not least – DO NOT DRINK WATER WITH YOUR MEALS. Sure, if you want to become constipated. “Drinking liquids during your meal dilutes your naturally occurring digestive enzymes and stomach acids which makes it harder to breakdown food. Stomach acids are dissipated with the act of consumings liquids with solids because water is excreted faster than solids.” I am not sure what world Food Babe is living on. Water is ESSENTIAL for natural digestion. The military requires recruits to drink full glasses of water before they are even served their meals. The first dietary step to weight loss or health improvement is to increase water intake. The human body is 57-70% water (on average). If you do not consume enough water to support metabolic processes (we need H20 to convert food into fuel), it will acquire it from somewhere else within the body – increasing the risk of dehydration. Does that sound like good advice?

Want to know more about the importance of drinking water with your meals? Visit a trusted site with information provided by medical professionals, such as the Mayo Clinic.

The bottomline

Because of the absurdity of the last habit alone, I have no respect for anything that will be posted on the site. This advice should be considered professional negligence – only Food Babe is not a professional. I did read the about page – no credentials, just a few lines that say nothing and a plethora of pictures of her with celebrities. Do you find comfort in accepting advice from a novice? I know that I do not.

Think twice about the credibility and validity of the sources of advice. Reading this so-called unconventional habits makes me angry. I even hate writing this response because I do not want to boost Food Babe’s popularity in any way, shape, or form.

You won’t necessarily becoming constipated (every individual will be different). But given what we know about nutrition, biochemistry, and physiology, it is a ridiculous recommendation. Given that you are adequately hydrated outside of meals, your body will work to draw the water out of the cells within your body in order to appropriately digest the food you are eating. This is metabolically inefficient and can slow down the metabolism.

But if it works for YOU, then I say go with it. We each need to find what works for us.

I agree with the nature of this article. I also support Becca’s desire for credible research. I found this article while vetting sources supporting “food babe’s” claims and have yet to discover any empirical evidence that support her claims. Still vetting.

Thank you for helping to expose this uncredentialed, self-absorbed fame chaser. Too often people just throw BS out there with not even a hint of empirically backed evidence behind it. This is more often than not the case when it comes to her food propaganda. The real sad part is that people who don’t know any better buy into her crap and she uses these minions to put pressure on large companies.